An effort to share my love and passion of science (and the odd other thing here and there..) with as many people as I can.

March 2, 2019

Growing Up Around the Turn of the Millennium

We see it all the time in rants from previous generations in the news, on facebook or straight from the mouth of the horse; this generation known as millennial are lazy, have no money sense, no social skills and are going nowhere in life because they all want to be included as special little snowflakes. There are many people of influence who share this view, and even many people I know, love and otherwise respect. This subject stands out to me because I happen to be one of those millennials, which is a good thing. If I wasn’t, I would probably do something about what’s being said. I would probably point out that all those things are either exaggerated, apply to every previous generation, or are simply wrong. I would probably type out a very long and well thought out argument detailing each of these things and making counter points. But I would probably also realize that these same people complaining aren’t going to take the time to read all that, so I’d delete it all and just turn it into a short simple rant…maybe something like….

“I can’t help but laugh at the irony when I constantly see people from older generations all over facebook perpetually posting about how addicted to social media my generation is. They sit in front of their computers all day and complain about us being glued to our devices and how we have no motivation to actually do anything. Their generation was sooo much better. Why can’t things be like the good old days?

“Good question. Why can’t we go back to a time when society barelypassed for ‘equality’? Boy do I yearn for the days when spousal abuse was accepted, when it was perfectly okay to grab a secretary’s ass and make her feel like a piece of meat, or when no one blinked an eye when ‘white neighborhoods’ were built and prioritized or loving couples were beaten, humiliated and even killed just because they didn’t consist of a man and a woman. God damn those were the days, when so little was understood about diseases we have nearly wiped out now and ‘terminal’ was such a common diagnosis for afflictions we no longer need to worry about. I can’t believe we no longer live in a society where lead is as common as grass and no one even thinks about the efficiency of the smog producing coal plants. I hate so much having a world of knowledge at my finger tips where I can look up and fact check any question I think of. Oh! And Don’t get me started on how much I hate being able to keep in touch instantly with friends and family across the globe whom I would otherwise hardly know if at all. I would so much rather be ignoring those around me for the newspaper or a book than my tablet on which I can read books or check the news.

“And we can’t forget how violent we are. All these school shooting caused by the music and violent video games we listne. Millenials are so violent so long as we gloss over people like Marc Lepine, Varley Fabrikant, Michael Slobodian, Anthony Barbaro, Edward Allaway, Brenda Spencer, David and Doris Young, Clem Henderson, Gang Lu, James William Wilson or Patick Edward Purdy to just name a few (and if you don’t know those names, maybe they’re worth looking up). But ya, it’s the music and video games for sure, no other generations had social issues and a severe lack of understanding of mental health which would lead to gun violence.

“When we get past our own biases and actually reflect, it’s obvious that millennials aren’t all that bad. We have ass holes, and I can’t stand a lot of them either, but this is hardly new. Every generation has had assholes, violence, narcissism, selfishness and rebels, and each time the previous generation looks down and talks about how bad these kids are, that they’re ruining the world and their own futures. I have no doubt that those who have been most vocal about millennials had their own parents, aunts and uncles saying the same things to them, yet the irony is somehow lost on them. The only difference we have is that technology has allowed these people to indulge in their vainess like no others have before, like those before no doubt would have if they too had the technology available, and like many of them currently do now that they have it. The fact of the matter is that we have more young entrepreneurs than ever before, we are making new discoveries in every scientific field than every before, we are more connected, we have more social equality, more awareness of the plights of other than ever before and when you think we’re ignoring people around us for our phones we are in fact connecting to people of different cultures, faiths, locations and ideas instantly and simultaneously then sharing what we see and hear with the other people doing the same thing. So next time you want to complain about a younger generation, think about how perfect you were first, remove the same types people from our generation which you remove from yours and have a look at the generations of influential people in power fucking things up right now then compare them.”

But, good thing I’m a millennial and too lazy to write anything like that.